Has Anyone Used Or Is Using a College Sports Recruiting Service?

We use NCSA and get the sibling discount.  Daughter utilized it for swimming (Just starting her senior year).  95 views and 55 follows.  And she was not nearly as proactive as some of the members on here state their kids are.  The site has tools to research schools your looking for with electable parameters such as Div, school size, majors, etc.

IMO swimming really doesn't have stats.  Its fastest times.  Is your 50 free time faster than x.    Can your butterfly beat x....  Compare that to exit velo's, pitch speed, outfield speed, 60's....etc.  

What I found NCSA to be really good with was when you look up a school, it has this section where is tells you NCSA athletes who committed to that school.  I click on the athlete and I can see their profiles.  It gives you most of the measurables to compare to your athlete.  You can also see their recruiting videos.  I saw one recruit who listed his pop time at a 1.9.  I watched his recruiting video and it was NO WHERE near a 1.9  I grabbed my phone and then used coaches eye to record the video from the monitor and broken down the hundreths.  Kid was only 2.35 to 2.4!  The nice thing is I can look at the kids both stats and on film...Tells me where my son stands for size...etc.  plus I also then look up the schools roster and can tell then if they red shirt him his first year, and what year they last recruited a catcher, etc.   

makes it very easy to hyper focus and spend too much time on if you like to do that kind of stuff.  lol 

FriarFred posted:

My son has a free berecruited site as well, but fortunately because of the great advice on here, he has been doing all the "recruiting" himself.  He has cast a very wide net (several hundred schools contacted) and has had really good results by doing it himself.  My involvement has been to edit a few videos for him and help him post them.  

Many schools/travel programs also have a "FieldLevel" account where you can put your profile, stats, videos etc.  You do have to pay a monthly fee, but my son has gotten really great response from that and you can send links to the coaches to view your profile.  You can also see what activity you have, profile views, video views and what colleges are looking at your son.  

The selling point on this is that your sons coach can put a confidential evaluation on the site that you can not see but the colleges that subscribe to the service can review it, with the intent being that since the player cant see it, it is an honest evaluation.  My suggestion would be to check with your high school and travel ball coaches and see if they have an account you can "join".  As it has been said many times on here, if you are willing to do a little work (especially your son), you can manage the recruiting game pretty well.  www.fieldlevel.com  No, i am not a paid spokesperson for them, just have found it helpful

I can't find any pricing on the fieldlevel site, how much is the paid or premium membership?

They have a $19/mo. option

Initech posted:

KilroyJ posted:

NCSA contacted us when son was a freshman, the contacts we spoke to were very nice and gave very generic "free" information on the initial phone call, most or all of which I already had acquired here. Didn't hear anything from them that would inspire me to plop down the money they were talking. I would recommend using BeRecruited.com's free profile service, it's a nice interface and a good way to keep son's information updated and post videos, etc. Then use the link to son's profile in the many emails you send out to the coaches of the schools he wants to go to. Occasionally  berecruited sends you an excited email or text -  "A coach has looked at your profile!". It will mostly be JUCOS and such, but at least with the free berecruited profile you can see who the coach was, unlike NCSA's "free" profile that won't tell you who until you pay...

I just signed up for the free BeRecruited service and it says you have to upgrade to Deluxe to see who a coach is if they search the profile.

Just like internet dating sites "my friend" told me about.

It runs 19, 39, or 59 per month.  We started with 19 and once he started getting some profile views, search hits, and video views etc. we moved up to 39.  I guess we have done the mid level 39 for about a year now.  FYI son is 2018 so almost at end of needing it.

Also - I will use PG site to see commits at schools who seem to have a lot of activity on field level and see if potential fit.  As posted above, nothing is free in  this world but you don't have to pay $$$$ to a recruiting service if your son is willing to do some leg work.

Go44dad posted:

Initech posted:

KilroyJ posted:

NCSA contacted us when son was a freshman, the contacts we spoke to were very nice and gave very generic "free" information on the initial phone call, most or all of which I already had acquired here. Didn't hear anything from them that would inspire me to plop down the money they were talking. I would recommend using BeRecruited.com's free profile service, it's a nice interface and a good way to keep son's information updated and post videos, etc. Then use the link to son's profile in the many emails you send out to the coaches of the schools he wants to go to. Occasionally  berecruited sends you an excited email or text -  "A coach has looked at your profile!". It will mostly be JUCOS and such, but at least with the free berecruited profile you can see who the coach was, unlike NCSA's "free" profile that won't tell you who until you pay...

I just signed up for the free BeRecruited service and it says you have to upgrade to Deluxe to see who a coach is if they search the profile.

Just like internet dating sites "my friend" told me about.

I logged in and checked my subscription status.... OK so it turns out I had purchased the one-time $99 "deluxe lifetime" option and kinda forgot I had done it. I'm getting a bit forgetful in middle age. And since I don't get billed anymore I made the leap to "it's free!!" sorry about that.

ncbixby posted:

My 2018 was offered a spot at a D3 school, based solely on viewing his profile on berecruited.com. Never saw him in person. He visited the school and stays in contact. For us, the free sites seem to work just fine.

Are they asking him to apply ED with the coach walking the application through admissions?

I wasnt there but my wife said they did try to get him to apply while they were there. We didnt apply though.

ncbixby posted:

I wasnt there but my wife said they did try to get him to apply while they were there. We didnt apply though.

The key is being asked to apply ED. My kids didn't play D3 so I'm not an expert on this. Since there aren't LOI's and athletic scholarships there are two ways to be sure of the coaches commitment. ED commits the kid to the school. A coach isn't going to make this request unless he really wants the kid. At academic D3's coaches often have some leeway with admission with five or six recruits. A coach asking for all the paperwork so he can push it through is anoer form of commitment.

Otherwise a kid could be one of fifty players invited to make the roster in the fall. In fact, all fifty might end up rostered. But what good is it to be player #30? My instincts tell me to be suspicious when none of the coaches have seen the player on the field and they don't have any skin/athletic money in the game. 

There have been some conversations here on D3 coaches using recruiting to get applications into admissions for the college's benefit. The kid gets rostered for a year. Then he walks away from the team when he realizes he doesn't have a shot in hell of getting on the field. 

A friend's son had his ED application walked through admission by the coach. When fall ball came around there were six freshmen in the same position recruiting wise. There were thirty-two other freshman bragging they were preferred walk ons until they realized how many there were. Three of those thirty-two made the team. 

Two years ago I would have said, it is a waste of money because these days everyone has a video camera and email and you can send your own video clips and emails to a coach.  Now, however, I have seen a few things and realize that a lot of recruiting is "who you know".  If the recruiting service is well-connected it could be worth it.  I definitately give it more value now, after having gone through recruitining a couple of times and seeing more.

Son is also on FieldLevel, his old travel coach signed him up last season and sent out blasts to his conected colleges, D1 down to NAIA. Had a bunch of follows, profile views and highlight views. Also started getting camp invites from all levels of schools. We get the free service, but if my son hits numbers this Fall and Spring we may upgrade.

RJM posted:

ncbixby posted:

My 2018 was offered a spot at a D3 school, based solely on viewing his profile on berecruited.com. Never saw him in person. He visited the school and stays in contact. For us, the free sites seem to work just fine.

Are they asking him to apply ED with the coach walking the application through admissions?

This is a key indicator at high academic D3.  Older son played football for Johns Hopkins, when coach asked him to apply ED, that's when we knew he was in.